1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image display apparatus and a recording medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
There has heretofore been a technology for displaying a scout image together with a plurality of axial images on a monitor screen and also displaying a line corresponding to one of axial images which is selected over the scout image on the monitor screen (see Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2000-210266).
It has been a practice to capture images in a medical test known as biopsy. According to a breast biopsy procedure, a needle is inserted into a breast to sample a tissue of a biopsy region including a suspicious lesion area. In order to insert the needle exactly into the biopsy region, it is necessary to capture images of the biopsy region prior to the needle insertion and determine the position of the biopsy region based on the captured images.
Image capturing processes for biopsy include a scout image capturing process for capturing a single image of a breast and a stereographic image capturing process for capturing a plurality of images of the breast. The doctor or radiological technician who is in charge of a biopsy procedure sees a breast image captured in the scout image capturing process and determines a biopsy region from which a tissue is to be sampled in the captured breast image. Then, a plurality of breast images are captured in the stereographic image capturing process, and the biopsy region is selected in each of the breast images captured in the stereographic image capturing process to determine the three-dimensional position of the biopsy region.
The biopsy region selected in each of the breast images captured in the stereographic image capturing process needs to be identical to the biopsy region determined in the breast image captured in the scout image capturing process. If the biopsy region selected in each of the breast images captured in the stereographic image capturing process is not identical to the biopsy region determined in the breast image captured in the scout image capturing process, then it is not possible to accurately determine the three-dimensional position of the biopsy region captured in the scout image capturing process.
Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2000-210266 discloses nothing about the selection in images captured in the stereographic image capturing process of the biopsy region determined in an image captured in the scout image capturing process.